Yahoo Finance Telstra hikes prices: How Aussies can save $816 a year
Aussies can save hundreds on their mobile phone plan by making a switch.
Millions of Aussies will be paying up to $72 more per year for their mobile phone plan, after Telstra, Belong and Boost Mobile increased their prices today.
From today, Telstra customers will see their mobile plan increase in line with the annual consumer price index (CPI), which rose 7 per cent for the year to March.
This means customers of the telco giant will be hit with a bill increase of between $3 and $6 per month, depending on their plan.
Also read: Telstra customers told to watch out for 'refund' email
Also read: Warning to Telstra customers: ‘Avoid disruption of your service’
Also read: Telstra customer gets $707 refund for incorrect charges: ‘Check your account’
Joel Gibson, author of Easy Money and Kill Bills, and telco comparison site WhistleOut shared three ways Aussies could beat the price hikes and save hundreds.
1. Switch networks - $420/year savings
“There are about three-dozen providers to choose from across three networks in Australia, and you can take your number with you, making mobile one of the simplest bills to switch,” Gibson said.
Out of Telstra, Optus and Vodafone, Telstra still had the best coverage outside the cities, Gibson said, but there was very little difference in metro areas and speeds.
“Telstra’s median is 96 Mbps (megabits per second) versus Optus’s 91 Mbps, according to the Ookla speedtest - which is very close. But the main reason to switch networks is price,” he said.
Here are some of the top deals with 50-60GB of data on WhistleOut:
Telstra - 50GB for $62/month
Moose Mobile (Optus network) - 55GB for $27/month for 1 year, then $35/month
TPG (Vodafone network) - 60GB for $20/month for 6 months, then $40/month
Circles.Life (Optus network) - 50GB for $30/month for first 18 months, then $35
2. Same network, cheaper provider - $384/year savings
If you’re keen to stick with your existing network, the second option is seeing if you can find a cheaper provider within the same network.
“There are now about a dozen other providers that use the Telstra network and charge less. Some are even owned by Telstra (in the case of Belong), or have access to the full Telstra network (in the case of Boost Mobile),” Gibson said.
“Others, such as Woolworths Mobile and Aldi Mobile, offer Telstra retail network coverage at supermarket prices.”
Here are some examples of postpaid plans in the Telstra network:
Telstra - 50GB for $62/month
Belong - 40GB for $35/month
Exetel - 80GB for $34/month (includes double data for first 6 recharges)
Tangerine - 64GB for $29.90/month (includes 6 months of double data)
3. Same provider, cheaper plan - $816/year savings
The third option is switching to a different plan with the same provider, but you may be locked into a longer plan or get less data.
“As a general rule, prepaid plans and long-expiry plans tend to be cheaper than postpaid plans,” Gibson said.
“Someone on Telstra’s cheapest postpaid plan, for example, will pay $62/month for 50GB of data from July 4. The most expensive will be $95/month for 300GB of data.”
If you’re keen to stick with Telstra, there are two ways to cut down costs:
Telstra’s prepaid plans start at $35 for 15GB over 28 days
Telstra’s long-expiry plan lasts a year and works out at $27/month for 14GB of data per month. Speeds are capped at 150Mbps, but that’s still three times as fast as the average NBN plan.
Follow Yahoo Finance on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter, and subscribe to our free daily newsletter.
